Roxy Jacenko, public relations queen and author, of Woollahra

WHERE

Hunters Hill Hotel

WHY

I grew up in Hunters Hill. The hotel has gone through dramatic changes. It's just been redeveloped. You can go really casually and it's laid-back, which is great, because if I go anywhere now, it's with two children who like to tear up the place. It's really a traditional pub, but it's gone from being the local pub to a big complex with a kids' playground.

Parents can sit and eat while the children play. There's an outdoor bistro area, a playground for the children and bar options. The good thing is that it's casual, but the food isn't compromised. I'm talking early dinners. My dinners are no longer 8.30pm starts.

Hunters Hill Hotel is very family oriented. If you put the kids in the play area, they're not there on their own. They will always meet other kids and enjoy themselves. Hunter not so much, but Pixie yes. They need a relaxed, laid-back environment where they can enjoy themselves. It's unrealistic to expect them to sit still with a knife and fork.

I learnt very quickly that children have to like the place, otherwise they're not going to enjoy the meal and you're certainly not going to. You have to pack up and leave.

Hunters Hill Hotel is not contrived and formal. It's the ultimate venue for a family. It has great meals at affordable prices, but the kids enjoy them too. Also, the interior is beautiful. It's very Hamptons style.

WHAT

I always have the smoked salmon risotto. While it's not good on the hips, it's very tasty. The 150-day sirloin (300 grams) is not my cup of tea, but it's always popular with the boys. I'm not a drinker. I'm a cheap date. One glass of sauvignon and I'm dancing on the tables. It's a sorry state of affairs. Olly, my husband, always has a VB on tap.

ABOUT

Book three has just come out. It's called The Spotlight. The protagonist was working for a PR company. She now has her own business and she has had children. It's about the reality of kicking goals. It's fictional, but it's certainly inspired by the day-to-day goings-on in this marvellous world of Sweaty Betty. It's very similar to my life. It's factional. It's heavily embellished, while quite similar. It's an inside look at the glitz and the glamour. It's really not like that. I'm actually the door bitch, saying no to the serial gatecrasher.

I have just had Hunter, who is six months old, and am working on Sweaty Betty and the Ministry of Talent, a blogger and instagram talent agency. The social-media world is so important to us we have to be engaging in new mediums that come to hand. If I didn't keep moving and running on that treadmill, I'd be left behind, and I have high overheads – I have to keep the money coming in. With the amount of time I spend in smash repairs, the insurance bills keep going up.

HUNTERS HILL HOTEL

64 Gladesville Road, Hunters Hill, 9817 2188, huntershillhotel.com.au
Entrees $7-$19; mains $18-$39; $80 for two, plus drinks

2.5 out of 5 stars 

(5 Hotel Paradiso, 4 Hotel Fabulous, 3 Pleasantville, 2 locals' haunt, 1 Fawlty Towers)

REVIEW

Hunters Hill Hotel does what it does well. Cold beer, check; big TV screens, check; pub menu with no surprises, check; plenty of car parking, check. Sitting on an intersection near commuter routes, it's a big, breezy space that has been given a thorough once-over with an interior designers' magic wand. Roxy Jacenko tags it Hamptons style. I'd go as far as referencing a pop Great Gatsby, despite the Players' Lounge, with its winking bank of coin-hungry one-armed bandits and the taps serving VB. There's a '20s industrialism look going on, with the monogram HHH (art-deco style, of course) adorning bistro menus, and ship-like chrome fittings and a clever indoor-outdoor space that is as happy delivering live footy to the crowds as it is hosting a party.

The menu is a sweeping demonstration of great Aussie pub grub, dishes that stand the test of time and do their job reliably, day in, day out. A special on the evening we visit is lemon risotto with barramundi and a crab cake. My hopes are high, but it's an exercise in blandness, made paler yet by the size of the heaped portion and the odd, rubbery nugget of white crab meat. A lot of a dull thing is never ideal, but it is certainly made a little less tedious by service that is charming and warm, a very smiley waitress bringing a garden salad gratis when unsolicited vegies arrived.

The steak hits the mark, cooked the way it was ordered and, in my date's words, the way a pub steak should be. Its pepper sauce has a whiff of the manufactured. The garlic bread with cheese is warm and greasy, if moreish, the kind of food we hate to love. There is chicken parmigiana (Australia's national dish?) and a host of beef cuts, plus fish and chips and the famous smoked salmon risotto. The bar is, well, a pub bar, doing what a pub bar does, and there are pizzas, burgers, chips and onion rings, all in generous servings and with enough salad options alongside to balance the protein-carbohydrate assault. It's crowd-pleasing, diplomatic stuff.

Its rightly popular children's play area is neatly positioned and a boon to the couples watching from tables nearby. It comes good on Jacenko's judgment that a meal at the HHH is casual and laid-back. It feels a little on the sterile side, though, a well-organised spot for feeding and watering without much soul. No doubt the venue is a neatly run and successful redevelopment, but I crave a bit of spirit with my chilled schooners.

Just one nota bene on why I love this place's honest character. It wasn't until after I had eaten here and interviewed Jacenko for this column that I learnt the pub is a client of Sweaty Betty's. Such are the perils of interviewing fastidiously switched-on PR players. Like the Hunters Hill Hotel, Jacenko is always doing her job.